Epoxy composites with ceramic core-shell fillers for thermal management in electrical devices

In this work, a novel core-shell material has been manufactured in order to enhance the thermal conductivity of epoxy-based composites. The polymer derived ceramics technique has been used to produce fillers whose core is composed of a standard material - silica, and whose outer layer consists of a boron nitride or silicon nitride shell. The synthesized filler was characterized by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy coupled with an energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis. The successful formation of core-shell structure was proven. Composite samples based on an epoxy resin filled with 31vol% of synthetized core-shell filler have been investigated in order to determine the effective thermal conductivity of the modified system. The resulting core-shell composite samples exhibited improvements in thermal conductivity of almost 30% in relation to standard systems, making them a promising material for heat management applications. Additionally, the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity was investigated over a broad temperature range indicating that the thermal behavior of the composite with incorporated core-shell filler is stable. This stability is a crucial factor when considering the potential of using this technology in applications such as electronics and power systems. Copyright (c) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.